Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed (2 March 1942-27 October 2013) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who was famous for both his involvement with The Velvet Underground in the 1960s and his solo career from 1970 onwards.

Biography
Lou Reed was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1942 and grew up in Freeport, Long Island; he came from a Jewish family, but he said that his real god was rock n' roll music. As a child, he was subjected to electroshock therapy by his parents to suppress his homosexual urges, but he went on to attend Syracuse University, became a radio host, and graduated in 1964. That same year, he moved to New York City and became a musician, and he formed The Velvet Underground, which performed avant-garde rock music from 1965 to 1970. His band never achieved success during its existence, only later becoming popular; Reed left in 1970, and his second album, Transformer (1972) brought him mainstream recognition. However, he fell into deep alcoholism and drug addiction due to his financial problems, and he cleaned up in the early 1980s before reaching a critical and commercial peak with his 1989 album New York. He participated in the reformation of the Velvet Underground in the 1990s, and he died in 2013 of liver disease at the age of 71.